These are the folks who helped us survive Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy.  We are entirely grateful to them for getting us back on the road again.

R D Sawyer Ford
Once we did the deal, these people bent over backwards for us.  Would we have liked for the service department to have caught our problem when we first brought our truck in?  Yes.  (Was it possible?  Don’t know.)  But, they took great care of us when we really needed it.  Ray, our salesman, gave us his cell phone number and told us to call him for any reason while we rode out the storm in our hotel room.  Michelle in the Service Department was attentive and uber-helpful.  Shelly helped us sail through our paperwork.  The service guys answered all our questions and explained everything to us while they worked.  Even Dock, the General Manager, took us for a ride in our truck and showed us how to use the newest F350 features.

The Elizabethan Inn
This charming place was our safe haven during the hurricane.  The staff was friendly and interested in helping us.  They held our room with no problem in case we needed another night.  Our pet friendly room was clean and well equipped with fridge, microwave, coffee maker and TV.  Maid service was great, even during the hurricane they asked us every day if we needed anything.  The Inn did get rather crowded during the hurricane and coast guard and emergency workers even stayed there, but that only added to our feeling of safety.  I must say, they do not guarantee to have power during a hurricane, but I did not feel we would be left to flounder.  There is an awesome, and I mean AWESOME, Italian restaurant that serves lunch and dinner called La Dolce Vita that in the evenings even has a live piano player.  Also, as our stay lengthened, they worked with us and gave us a discounted rate on our room.

Seto’s Towing
We were given the number for Seto’s Towing by our insurance company.  These people were friendly and highly capable.  We dealt with Carl the owner and Bill the driver. These guys go out and pull people off of the beach during hurricanes, they really do care.  By being willing to keep our trailer for us next to their building and watch out for it, they totally saved our home.

The Refuge
We discovered this gem of an RV park in Wanchese on Roanoke Island by need.  All the other RV parks in the area were under water.  This park was totally redone this year after Hurricane Irene hit last year.  Peggy, the park host, was wonderful.  Easy back-ins looking over the pond with new all-amp hookups.  Bathrooms were spotless and we really liked the cascading ramp up to the bathhouse.  There’s a long deck walkway that is lit up at night.

OBX Mobile RV Service
Bubba Walke of OBX Mobile RV Service expertly diagnosed our RV fridge problem after it sat off-level for a few days during the hurricane.  He also tracked down the breaker inside our generator that tripped when I overloaded it.  Bubba is based in Kill Devil Hills, NC and travels to almost anywhere in the Outer Banks.  His number is 252-202-2207.  Bubba even called the next day to check that we were still okay.  He is very nice and extremely capable.  We highly recommend him.

A recap of the situation at the end of Day 1:  Truck dead, we’re stranded on an island, RV has power problems, RV is sitting in flood area, huge hurricane coming.

Pink is our starting point, red is where we broke down.

Day 2  (Sat):  After managing about 3 hours sleep, we had our goals for the day.  Get the RV out of the flood zone to high ground, get a new truck, get enough clothes and supplies to survive the hurricane in our hotel room- which could lose power.  Before attacking this day, we took a moment to ask ourselves something… do we want to continue our full time RVing lifestyle, or do we want to get a fuel efficient car, find a brick and mortar home, and sell the RV?  After some soul searching, we looked at eachother… the power of the moment was tangible.  We decided it wasn’t time to quit.

As we reached the dealership, we worked on finalizing the deal for a new, 2012 Ford F350 Diesel truck.  Being a small dealership, our truck had to be brought in from 4 hours away.  The tow truck from Seto’s arrived.  Bill, the driver, was capable and caring and took all our concerns into consideration.  He hooked up our home on wheels and took it to their shop on high ground in Kitty Hawk.  We watched it leave with our whole life inside it.  Then, as the weather got worse, we got food and supplies to ride out the hurricane in our room at the Elizabethan Inn.

Day 3 (Sun):  Sandy was rowdy as strong winds rattled our door all night, but we did sleep, and were amazed we still had electricity.  A momentary break in the rain gave us the feeling that we might be able to do the 20 minute drive over the Washington Baum Bridge and the Manteo Causeway to Whalebone Junction and up to Kitty Hawk to check on the RV.  Lots of  businesses were closed but there were still several cars on the road, most of them trucks and SUVs that hulked above our little loaner Taurus.  Driving the bridge proved to be quite challenging with high winds pushing us around.  When we reached the causeway, and saw wind driven waves splash up and over the road, we knew this wasn’t the smartest thing we’d ever done.  But, we got to Seto’s safely and although the battery power was severely waning, the RV seemed to be faring well.  We got a few things and scrammed out of there, making the treacherous drive back across the causeway and bridge to our room in Manteo just before they closed down the causeway. 

Day 4 (Mon):  The storm was still upon us, but waning slightly.  We stopped by the dealership to check that someone was still going to make the 4 hr drive to pick up our new truck.  With that off our minds, we made the trip to our RV again to see if we could plug it in to an outlet to test if it would run on shore power.  Except for being off-level and the refrigerator beeping our RV looked good and did indeed run on shore power.  That was huge.  We hurried back over the causeway before high tide came.  Then we watched Sandy approach our home area of Philadelphia and New Jersey.  Our adult kids back home were all prepared for the storm and possible power outages and were inside safely and we checked on eachother all night by text.

Day 5 (Tue):  Kids were fine.  Our goal for this day was to see if the truck arrived and have the hitch switched over, spend one last night in the hotel, then pick up the RV in Kitty Hawk the next day and head south where we could sort out our power problem.  It was not, however, in the cards for us to attain these goals.  It turned out that our 5th wheel hitch needed an adapter to fit the new truck, and that meant we were stuck a few more days.  Since the weather was clearing, we asked Seto’s to tow our 5th wheel to a campground on the southern end of Roanoke Island in Wanchese.  The Refuge, the campground was called, was right on a pond that connects with the Albemarle Sound.  Peggy, the host camper, apologized for being in the same clothes for the past three days.  We smiled, because we were too. Peggy had her own evacuation foibles and was forced to leave her motorhome and stay in town with friends.  It was good to be back in a campground again with other RVers.  We thanked Peggy for being our refuge and made arrangements for our rig to be towed there the next morning.

Day 6 (Wed):  The tow went perfectly.  We finally had our home back!!!  Upon inspection, there were no leaks, the only problem was the fridge.  Our salvation was a guy named Bubba from OBX Mobile RV Service.  Bubba fixed the fridge and reset the internal breaker on our generator, something we had no clue existed, and checked our automatic transfer switch.  By the time Bubba was finished, we were relieved and ready to crash in our own bed for a week!

Day 7: (Thurs):  Waking up in our own home, looking out our back window over the pond watching the loons dive and swim underwater and drinking our own coffee seemed like most heavenly experience ever!  It was hitch day and as soon as the adapter arrived, we had our hitch installed and were ready to roll.

Day 8 (Fri):  The new truck pulled like a dream, and we were surprised at how good the gas mileage was.  But the best of all, we had peace of mind and a 5-year warranty.  We still had some work ahead of us to get completely road ready, but we had survived Hurricane Sandy, and our evacuation was successful, because, the campground we’d left a week ago in Frisco was under water and the storm destroyed the only road off Hatteras Island, for the second year in a row.  As you can see alot of people helped us get rolling again, and I’ll be thanking them in my next post.

On Sunday the 21st of October, after four glorious weeks in Frisco, NC, Billy and I were sitting at Pop’s eating shrimp, crabcakes and hush puppies watching two tropical storms that were developing off the coast of Central America, Sandy and Tony.  A few days of sun, surf and sand later, we watched as Tony took his expected right turn, and Sandy took prominence.  As Sandy crossed Cuba and then the Bahamas, she left extensive damage in her wake.  We began to get nervous as she headed toward Florida. At this point, Sandy could follow one of two models: the US model, taking her off into the middle of the Atlantic on Tony’s heels, and the European model which took her up the east coast of the US and then possibly taking a dangerous left turn to landfall.

Delightful seventy degree days allowed us to swim in warm ocean waters.  Our dog, Angie, was having the time of her life on our long beach walks.  She was totally intrigued by the fish caught by surf fishermen and even watched a blow fish turn into a tennis ball right before her very eyes.  On Thursday the 25th of October, we expected another peaceful island day until something told me to turn on The Weather Channel and check on Sandy.  Immediately, the tone told me to pay attention.  It took us an hour to assess the situation and make our decision.  We were heading out of there first thing in the morning.  Sandy was taking the route of the European model.

My first thought was that I couldn’t believe this was happening for the second year in a row.  My cabbing machine was set up and I had been making cabochons all week.  I had several project stones in mid-grind.  Two buckets of stones were on the floor.  Two loads of laundry needed to be done.  The list of what needed to be done was long, but we attacked it as if our life depended on it… because it did.  We all know RV’s don’t fare well in hurricanes, and that goes for any people inside, so we got a credit voucher for the remainder of our stay from Frisco Woods Campground, filled the truck up with fuel and by about 2 PM, I was taking Angie for our last walk on the beach.  As usual, the locals are typically nonchalant about it all, but I did notice people driving highway 12 with a little more purpose than usual and anxiety filled faces as they filled up with fuel and began to buy supplies.  When Angie and I stepped onto the beach that afternoon, nobody was panicking, obviously they didn’t know yet.  As we said goodbye to the ocean, we informed a few beach goers of Sandy’s changes and warned them to be wary.  Believe it or not, I had a little trouble convincing them and had to repeat myself three times for my message to get through.

For over the past year, we’ve had a few issues with our 2005 Ford F350 Diesel truck.  Yes, it’s the infamous 6.0.  Early in our stay on the island, we drove the hour up the island to the nearest Ford dealership in Manteo on Roanoke Island to have a suspicious white smoke coming from our tailpipe checked out.  The smoke stopped just before pulling into the dealership.  The tech checked it thoroughly and, scratching his head, said he couldn’t find a problem and that likely we got some fuel with water in it.  Four days later, we had a 15 minute period of more smoke, only now it was black.  On the phone, the dealership said it was probably getting rid of some carbon they knocked loose and was normal.

Okay… now the stage is set.

Sunset over the Sound on our last night on Hatteras Island.

Day 1:  At dawn on Friday the 26th of October in Frisco NC on Hatteras Island, we pulled out of the campground.  Some RVers were also leaving, some looked like they were staying.  Sandy was to officially arrive the next day, but wind and rains would start that afternoon.  Just as we did last year, we headed for the NC State Fairgrounds in Raleigh.  An hour into our drive the smoke problem returned… with a vengeance.  Instead of white, the smoke was thickly black with a blue hue.  Loss of power accompanied the huge cloud of smoke around us.  We chose to go straight for R D Sawyer’s, the Ford Dealership about 15 miles ahead… and then we prayed we’d get there.  By God’s grace we arrived, albeit in a cloud of smoke large enough to bring every employee out to see what was burning.  We dropped our 5th wheel in a gravel and grass parking lot on the side and waited to hear the verdict in our RV with the generator running.  While we waited, we checked on Hurricane Sandy.  The good news was Sandy was taking a route a little further out from the Outer Banks, the bad news was that Sandy was huge and picking up speed.  Two or three hours into our wait, we lost power in our RV.  As we checked circuit breakers and fuses, the rain started.  We couldn’t find the problem.  So, now we had to replan our route to take the RV to a repairman we knew about 4 hours southwest of us.  Unfortunately the news on our truck was not good.  The suspected bad fuel injector turned out to be a cracked fuel injector with a piece missing inside the cylinder, warranting major engine work.  So, now it became obvious we were stuck on Roanoke Island and shopping for a new truck.  The last shock of the day, as Sandy approached, was, we were informed, that the parking lot where our RV sat, typically floods during hurricanes… sometimes in inches, sometimes in feet.  I called our roadside assistance number for our insurance company and was given a number for a tow company called Seto’s.  When I called, they were prepared and willing to pull us out and asked where we wanted them to take it.  Since I had no idea where a safe place would be, I asked them for advice and they offered to take it to their property on high ground in Kitty Hawk, and would put it next to their building which would at least provide protection on one side.  We made arrangements to meet the next morning for the tow.  Michelle at R D Sawyer’s called the Elizabethan Inn, a mile down the road in Manteo and arranged for a doggie friendly room at their best rate.  R D Sawyer was kind enough to give us a loaner car to get there.

And so, we left with what items we could reach and grab and headed for the Elizabethan Inn, in shock and worn out, and wondering what Sandy would bring. 

The rest of the story to come.

A quick update on our Hurricane Sandy evacuation.

We’re fine.

Our truck died just as we were leaving the island and we limped into a Ford dealership in Manteo, NC, where after several hours, it was pronounced dead.  Our 5th wheel RV had to be towed out of the parking lot because of impending flooding from Sandy while we rode it out in a hotel.  Our RV survived Sandy successfully and we are back in it at a campground in Wanchese.  This is our sexy new truck.  Yes, it’s the 6.7. Our 5th wheel hitch will be installed today.  If everything goes right, we should be outta here and heading for warmer weather tomorrow.

Still working on getting fully operational.  We have alot of good people to thank in Frisco, Manteo, Wanchese and Kitty Hawk for helping us.  Full story to come.

We’ve been watching Hurricane Sandy and in the last hour it turned our way, so… for the second year in a row, we are evacuating our beloved Hatteras Island and leaving prayers and wishes for the island’s safety in our wake.  On the anniversary of the perfect storm, they are calling Sandy one also. 

God Bless Hatteras Island.

Any RVer knows how important tires are for sustaining mobility.  Typically, RVs are parked, or on the move.  Believe it or not, most RV tires need replacement not because of tread wear but because of dry rot due to exposure to UV light.

To extend the life of our tires, we got some tire covers to protect them from the sun and rain while parked.  We got a set from Empire Covers.  They arrived in two days in this neat little storage bag, not too expensive either.  

Opened it up, and found them all wrapped up neatly like this.  It was pretty cool.

Four of them come in the bag.  Just what we needed.

Opened one up and it was pretty easy to figure out how to put it on.  The white strap unbuckles and goes around the back of the tire to be rebuckled.

The strap was the only tricky part, crawling under the RV to work the strap around the back of the tire was a fun challenge, but manageable.

They were really very easy to put on.

It took about 10 minutes to do all four.

So, we’ve learned, if we’re gonna keep rolling, we gotta take care of our tires.  Empire Covers carries a full line of RV covers too. 

We also ordered some awesome new rubber floor mats from them for our truck and we’re really happy with them.

Well, we’ve come full circle again for our second year.

Back to the Philadelphia area with family and friends, where there is ample water and vegetation.

We were lucky to get a site right on a duck pond where we can watch the ducks and geese…

…and the occasional turkey.

Good times seeing all the kids…

…and spending time together.  We saw Chad and Katie also but I forgot my camera.  🙁

Angie and Toby are having fun being together again.  Nice to be able to take walks in an area that is free of rattlesnakes, scorpions, bears and coyotes.

The turbo on our Ford diesel is finally fixed.  We opted to have it rebuilt with new parts rather than have the whole unit replaced.  So far it has been running great and purring like a kitten.  We had a nice reunion with our ace mechanics, Kevin, Mike and Kenny at All Phase Auto in Aston who checked our brakes.  We were surprised that they were good to go.

The other issue we’ve been dealing with is our Norcold 1210 fridge (double door model).  As you can imagine, being full time RVers, this is something on which we are heavily dependent.  Diagnosing the problem can be tricky at best, maddening at worst.  It could be the thermistor inside the unit, or the sensor outside that senses the outdoor temperature and tells it how hard it needs to work to bring it to temp.  It could be the cooling unit (ouch!) or the entire fridge needing to be replaced (yikes!).  As with most modern appliances, it is controlled by a mother board and a maze of electronics that give us all those wonderful bells and whistles we’ve all come to expect.  After our Norcold seemingly died, and needing to throw out all the food in it (ugh), we borrowed a mini-fridge from my son and turned it off for a couple of days.  We sent the down payment to the repairman for a new fridge.  Then, in a moment of sheer genius, we decided to turn it on and see what happened.  The dang thing is working like a champ!  So, our repair guy came over again today to see it for himself and was standing there looking at it scratching his head.  And so on goes more testing to see if we can narrow down the problem.  He still suspects the fridge is on its last legs, but we are cautiously optimistic.  After the turbo rebuild, it would be nice to have a lucky break.  Wouldn’t be good to be in east Timbuktu in need of a new fridge.

Since we’re near our storage unit, we’ve been able to go through everything we’ve been carrying to throw out, give away and store.  Went and got the six boxes of rocks I sent to my son to hold for me and got them to storage.  I’ve been going through my rocks and picking what I will be working and what gets saved for later projects.  It’s good to free up a little work space.  My small 4″saw went into storage as I plan to continue to use my 7″ saw.  I’m contemplating whether to store my silver working equipment or not.  Just haven’t had much luck with soldering in outdoor conditions.  We brought our big vacuum and steam cleaner from storage to do the rugs again (they needed it!).  RV washing is prohibited here at the campground but we signed up for a mobile pressure wash.  Then we’ll wax the rig and go through all our checks on the roof and recaulk and treat the seals and gaskets on our slides.  We had all the screws tightened in Winslow AZ, but we’ll probably go around and check and tighten what is needed anyway.  We gave our drains a good cleaning with our water gun (the one we would be using to wash the outside if allowed), and will clean the desert dust out of our A/C filters.

I’m sure we’ll find some more maintenance to do, but for now it’s good to be in one spot to be able to get all this done.